Author Archive

Articles by Michael Meyer | Email the Author

 

1. Feature

   Going to great lengths

   November 1, 2012 12:00 AM

   From the beginning, The Atavist was a small startup with a lot of big playmates. A pioneer in the e-singles space, the Brooklyn-based company became an instant media darling, and when Amazon launched Kindle Singles in January... Continue reading

2. The Kicker

   USA Today’s 30th birthday bash

   September 14, 2012 03:26 PM

   Thursday night, the Gannett Company gathered employees, friends, and family at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of USA Today. Recognizing that an event in 2012 that looked back fondly on 30 years of... Continue reading

3. The Kicker

   CJR Audio: investing in local news startups

   September 6, 2012 11:00 AM

   In most of the startup world, capital is everything. It costs money to build an institution and sustain its growth until the point that revenues can match (and then, hopefully, exceed) expenses. But there’s very little capital in the world... Continue reading

4. Cover Story

   Made for you and me

   September 5, 2012 12:00 AM

   Across the street from a Fastenal hardware store in the shadow of Tulsa’s aging art-deco skyline, the staff of what is perhaps the best for-profit local journalism startup in the country has yet to reinvent the craft. Eleven... Continue reading

5. The Kicker

   Required skimming: journalism business models

   August 29, 2012 06:50 AM

   This month, CJR presents “Required Skimming,” a daily miniguide to our staffers’ beats and obsessions, ranging from finance to food. If we overlooked any of your must-read destinations, please tell us in the comments. • Nieman Journalism Lab:... Continue reading

6. The Kicker

   Required skimming: media news aggregators not named Romenesko

   August 21, 2012 06:50 AM

   This month, CJR presents “Required Skimming,” a daily miniguide to our staffers’ beats and obsessions, ranging from finance to food. If we overlooked any of your must-read destinations, please tell us in the comments. • Project for Excellence... Continue reading

7. Review

   All on the same page

   August 8, 2012 10:31 AM

   Mark Bauerlein, an english professor at Emory University and the author of the 2004 National Endowment for the Arts study “Reading at Risk,” tells a story about an Apple Store sales display that convinced him... Continue reading

8. Behind the News

   The Ford Foundation’s unprecedented grant to The Los Angeles Times

   May 22, 2012 01:53 PM

   On Thursday, Los Angeles Times editor Davan Maharaj announced that his paper, once a profit engine for multi-billion dollar corporate owners and still one of the most powerful news organizations in the country, will receive a $1... Continue reading

9. The Kicker

   What’s Slate been up to?

   May 4, 2012 12:32 PM

   It's been more than a year since we profiled Slate for CJR's Guide to Online News Startups (then the News Frontier Database). Since then, the grandfather of Internet magazines lost Jack Shafer and Timothy Noah to... Continue reading

10. Critical Eye

    The Authentic Mexican Cookoff

    April 19, 2012 02:14 PM

    Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America | By Gustavo Arellano | Scribner | 320 pages, $25.00 Recently popularized as a buzzword for genuineness, “authenticity” has a much longer history as a term used to commodify the “ethnic”... Continue reading

11. Currents

    Saturation Point

    January 16, 2012 06:00 AM

    Consider the situation in many local news markets—some coverage from a newspaper, some from television, maybe one online outlet making a go of it. And then consider Evanston, Illinois, the affluent Chicago suburb that’s home to Northwestern University, where at... Continue reading

12. Essay

    What Can I Build Today?

    November 18, 2011 09:00 AM

    There are hundreds of local and regional online news startups in America, but only about five that media observers discuss with any frequency. The names will be familiar: Voice of San Diego, The Texas Tribune,... Continue reading

13. Critical Eye

    Failures of Vision

    September 21, 2011 02:01 PM

    Believing is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography | by Errol Morris | The Penguin Press | 336 pages, $40.00 Here’s a theory: every year photographs become more ubiquitous, and as that growing ubiquity builds to a certain critical... Continue reading

14. Currents

    News Frontier

    August 28, 2011 01:49 PM

    Entry barriers are low in the online news world. Cheap hosting and free templates have launched a million blogs, including some where a single person, calling himself “Gazette” or “Bugle” or “Wire” or what have you, masquerades as a full-on... Continue reading

15. Critical Eye

    Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)

    August 26, 2011 06:00 AM

    The marketing team behind Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), a biopic of Edward R. Murrow set largely amid the public duel between the broadcast pioneer and the mildly outspoken anti-communist Senator Joseph McCarthy, decided to go with a poignant,... Continue reading

16. Critical Eye

    Q&A: Sebastian Junger on Tim Hetherington

    July 7, 2011 05:31 PM

    It’s not often that one sees characters from a film gather to mourn a filmmaker. On May 24, soldiers from Second Platoon of Battle Company of the 173rd Airborne Division joined friends, colleagues, and family of Tim Hetherington for a... Continue reading

17. Currents

    All Politics is Local

    July 5, 2011 05:01 PM

    One of the most important questions facing the news industry in its search to sustain journalism online is how the models of financially successful national news sites, which have the benefit of higher traffic volume to make up for... Continue reading

18. Critical Eye

    Superman

    July 1, 2011 10:49 AM

    When watching Superman (1978), I was reminded of the David Carradine rant from the end of Kill Bill: Vol. 2, in which he starts off with “As you know, I’m quite keen on comic books…” and goes on to talk... Continue reading

19. The News Frontier

    New Media Goes Door to Door in the Deep South

    May 9, 2011 10:57 AM

    I first encountered Weld in September 2010, and it remains the only site I’m aware of that was given an award before it officially launched. Its “prototype,” a Birmingham politics and public affairs blog called Second... Continue reading

20. Critical Eye

    Q&A: Calvin Trillin

    April 20, 2011 10:14 AM

    Trillin on Texas | by Calvin Trillin | University of Texas Press | 184 pages, $22.00 Last month, long-time New Yorker writer Calvin Trillin published his twenty-seventh book, a collection of nonfiction pieces about Texas and Texans titled, appropriately, Trillin... Continue reading

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